It’s a beautiful day in Safetyville, but not if you try to race a speeding train across the tracks or distractedly walk into its path while scrolling through Tinder. Splat!
That’s the message in a scared-straight-style animated campaign from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles, which takes a cue from the Cannes Lion-winning Aussie series “Dumb Ways to Die.”
“Dumb Ways to Die” could be the theme song of Game of Thrones. And now this parody, from Egor Zhgun, brings them together in celebration of the various gory, untimely deaths through the show’s first four seasons. Spoilers, obviously.
The HBO show’s fifth season premiered Sunday.
“Dumb Ways to Die,” the famed Australian train-safety campaign from 2012, has done a couple of encores for special occasions. First it did a Valentine’s Day ad. And now it’s done a little choose-your-own-adventure Halloween special.
Should you trick or treat those who come to your door on Friday? Well, both approaches have their risks, it seems—for candy giver and candy seeker alike. “Be safe around Halloween … and trains,” says the copy.
Agency: McCann Melbourne.
One of the lovably misguided characters from “Dumb Ways to Die” sold both his kidneys on the Internet. Now, the client behind the beloved campaign has made a similarly greedy deal with the devil.
Through a licensing deal, Metro Trains has sold the creative product pretty much wholesale to Empire Life Insurance Co., which is cutting its own ads from it. Three 30-second spots posted online play snippets from the original musical cartoon, before a female voice pipes in and says: “What’s the dumbest way of all to die? Having no life insurance.” Empire has also done some digital ads with the characters and plans “a robust merchandise program … for multiple territories worldwide,” according to the Globe and Mail.
Ugh.
Talk about dumb. As the Ethical Adman points out, it just seems lazy and greedy—plus, the viral potential of the work has already been tapped worldwide, so what’s the point? On the eve of the 2014 Cannes Lions festival, it’s also a depressing slap in the face to the ad business to see the most decorated campaign in Cannes history bastardized like this—a PSA cynically turned into for-profit campaign.
You can understand Metro Trains wanting to make a buck off the work. But stick to making plush toys, not selling the whole cartoon to some huckster.
McCann, whose Melbourne office created “Dumb Ways to Die,” declined to comment on the Empire ads and referred inquiries to Metro Trains. We left messages with Metro and will update when we hear back.
In case you thought April Fools' was only about fake products and glaringly obvious gags, here's a nice palate cleanser. The adorable, ill-fated blobs from Dumb Ways to Die are back with an April 1 greeting, courtesy of agency McCann Melbourne.
In case you missed the railroad safety campaign's Valentine's Day clip, it was quite the heart-warmer/remover.
Hopefully such holiday one-offs will become an ongoing way for Metro Trains Melbourne and McCann to keep creating new stories based on the original 2012 video, which won a bevy of industry awards and now boasts a killer view count of 76.5 million on YouTube.
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Fifteen months and 71 million YouTube views after its storied premiere, McCann Melbourne's "Dumb Ways to Die" train-safety campaign is back with this cute, grotesque little spot for Valentine's Day. Turns out the greedy little blue blob who sold both his kidneys on the Internet now has easy access to other vital organs through the stitched-up wounds. Despite his best intentions, death, naturally, ensues. "Be safe around Valentine's Day … and trains," says the on-screen copy.
This is just the second new "Dumb Ways" video released since the staggeringly successful original—following a 15-second promo made for the Melbourne International Film Festival last July. For those who have to sing it loud, though, there is also the official karaoke version of the original.
Via Osocio.
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Talvez você não saiba, mas clipes de papel podem ser extremamente perigosos. Pelo menos é o que mostra a animação que a Monkeystack criou para a Cruz Vermelha australiana. A ideia é mostrar a importância de se prevenir maiores consequências em acidentes de trabalho aprendendo primeiros-socorros.
Na animação, um funcionário aparece com um clipe enganchado no olho, e pede ajuda para um colega. O problema é que, conforme as pessoas tentam resolver o problema, ele só aumenta, até resultar em uma verdadeira catástrofe mundial.
Apesar de simpático e até divertido, é impossível não lembrar de uma certa animação australiana que aposta no humor negro para falar de segurança – aquela, que se consagrou em Cannes recentemente. Imagino até que o briefing do cliente tenha sido algo do tipo: “Quero uma versão SIPAT para Dumb Ways to Die“. Enfim, o importante é que a mensagem foi passada.
Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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